LinkedIn, the popular social networking site for professionals, is constantly updating and upgrading its features. The most recent tool to receive an update is the LinkedIn Events tool, which can be used to promote global events and reach potential attendees, exhibitors, presenters, and marketers from within your niche – whatever that niche may be.

Why Use LinkedIn to Market an Event

If you want to get the most out of your events promotion, then you will need to target your efforts towards the right sort of people. There’s no point attracting a huge audience to your event if most of the attendees are people that are not interested in your niche. A successful event is one that offers lots of networking opportunities for its attendees. Attracting a few hundred industry icons is better than attracting a few thousand people who are just there for some free food.

LinkedIn makes it easy to reach people who work in a specific niche, something that more general social platforms aren’t designed for.

More Than Just Trade Shows

LinkedIn is great for marketing global events such as trade shows and conferences, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be used for smaller scale events. If you’re holding a local tweetup, a business breakfast, an open source hour, or a workshop for local entrepreneurs, then why not advertise it online?

How To Effectively Market an Event

One downside of the success of LinkedIn is that there’s a lot of noise on there. If you want your event to stand out, you’ll have to take some time to design an effective marketing campaign. Make sure that you upload your logo, and, if your event is a new or relatively unknown one, spend a few minutes thinking about the title. Avoid using abbreviations in your title unless you’re sure people will know what they mean. A good title makes it clear to the viewer where your event is, what industry it relates to, and who the target audience is.

In addition to a clear title, put together a description that explains exactly what will happen at the event. Is it a seminar, a networking session, a trade show, or all three? Is it aimed at buyers, jobseekers, or people seeking investment funding? How much does it cost to attend? Will anyone prominent in the industry be present? Answer those questions in the description.

Get Your Attendees to Market For You

Encourage your attendees to highlight their plans via clicking the “I’m attending” button. You may also want to put the event on Facebook, and let people register on Eventbrite, so that word will spread more quickly, and you’ll be able to communicate quickly and easily with your attendees.

Don’t forget to include a map. This is especially important for global events where some of your attendees might not know the area well. It would be a shame to have a lot of people sign up, but then end up being a no-show because of something as easily avoided as “I got lost”!